Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/192

Nicaragua led by William Walker, whose envoy at Washington, Vijil, was formally recognized by the president in 1856. (See Walker, William.) As, by the terms of the Kansas and Nebraska act, the people of those territories were to be left free to determine for themselves whether or not slavery should be tolerated there, a struggle soon began in Kansas, to which chiefly emigration was directed, between the anti-slavery and pro-slavery parties, which, after many acts of violence and a long period of confusion amounting almost to civil war, terminated in the adoption by the people of Kansas of a state constitution excluding slavery. (See Kansas.) In the course of the debates on the Kansas question Mr. Sumner of Massachusetts made a speech in the senate, May 19 and 20, 1856, and two days afterward was assailed in the senate chamber by Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina for expressions therein, and so much injured that he was long unable to resume his duties. This event increased still further the anti-slavery feeling at the north; and when the canvass for president began in 1856, an anti-slavery party appeared in the field of far more formidable dimensions than any previous organization of the kind. This party assumed the name of republican, and absorbed the entire free-soil party, the greater part of the whig party, and considerable accessions from the democratic party. The first decisive exhibition of its strength was the election in the congress of 1855-'6 of N. P. Banks, a former democrat, as speaker of the house of representatives. The whig party about this period disappeared from the field, that portion of it opposed to anti-slavery measures having been merged, especially at the south, in an organization called the American party from its opposition to foreign influence, and particularly to Roman Catholic influence, in our political affairs, but popularly known as the “Know-Nothing party” from the secrecy of its organization and the reticence of its members. This party held a national convention at Philadelphia, Feb. 22, 1856, and, after adopting a platform virtually recognizing the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska act and approving the fugitive slave law, nominated Millard Fillmore for president, and Andrew J. Donelson of Tennessee for vice president. The democratic national convention met at Cincinnati, June 2, and reaffirmed the Baltimore platform of 1852, with the addition of resolutions condemning the principles of the American party, recognizing the Kansas-Nebraska act as the only safe solution of the slavery question, affirming the duty of upholding state rights and the Union, and assenting generally to the doctrines of the Ostend circular. James Buchanan of Pennsylvania was nominated for president, and John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for vice president. The republican national convention met at Philadelphia, June 17, and adopted a platform declaring that “the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the federal constitution is essential to the preservation of our republican institutions, and that the federal constitution, the rights of the states, and the union of the states shall be preserved;” and that “the constitution confers upon congress sovereign power over the territories of the United States for their government, and in the exercise of this power it is the right and the duty of congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery.” John C. Fremont of California was nominated for president, and William L. Dayton of New Jersey for vice president. The election resulted in the choice of Buchanan and Breckinridge by 174 electoral votes, against 114 for Fremont and 8 for Fillmore. The popular vote for Buchanan was 1,838,169, for Fremont 1,341,264, and for Fillmore 874,534. Fillmore received the vote of Maryland, Buchanan the votes of all the other slave states and of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, and California (19 in all), and Fremont those of the 11 remaining free states.—President Buchanan appointed as his cabinet Lewis Cass, secretary of state; Howell Cobb, of the treasury; John B. Floyd, of war; Isaac Toucey, of the navy; Jacob Thompson, of the interior; Aaron V. Brown, postmaster general; and Jeremiah S. Black, attorney general. With the exception of a rebellion of the Mormons in Utah in 1857-'8, which was suppressed without bloodshed, and of the admission into the Union of Minnesota in 1858 and of Oregon in 1859, the chief interest of Mr. Buchanan's administration centred around the slavery controversy, which still continued in Kansas, in the halls of congress, and in the legislatures of the free states. Several of the latter bodies, under the influence of a growing public opinion in opposition to the justice and constitutionality of the fugitive slave law, passed acts designed to impede its operation, and to secure to alleged fugitives the right to trial by jury and to the legal assistance usually given to those charged with criminal offences. These acts were commonly called personal liberty laws. An important element in the slavery controversy was the decision of the supreme court in the case of Dred Scott, rendered soon after the inauguration of Presidaent Buchanan. (See Taney, Roger Brooke.) A constitution for Kansas framed at Lecompton in 1857 was laid before congress in the session of 1857-'8, and was strongly opposed by the republicans on the ground that it had been fraudulently concocted by the pro-slavery party there, that it did not represent the wishes of the people of Kansas, and that some of its provisions were cunningly framed for the purpose of forcing slavery into the new state in spite of the opposition of the inhabitants. A powerful section of the democratic party, headed by Stephen A. Douglas, sided with the republicans in this matter; but